


the last promise

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: Many decades later, on a whole other planet, when Kara takes on Supergirl’s mantle, and it’s in the colours of the House of Ze, Astra will realize that Alura hadn’t been lying.





	the last promise

Before she beams Astra up to Fort Rozz, Alura takes her away from the watchful eyes of the council. She tells them it’s for a final briefing, a mere formality. When they’re alone, though, all Alura does is softly stroke Astra’s cheek, and look at her with watery eyes.

 

Astra shies away from the contact, not having known until then what it feels like to crave someone’s touch and despise it at the same time. Alura doesn’t relent, following Astra’s retreat backwards until they’re facing each other again, before speaking in a low but intent voice.

 

“I believe you, Astra,” she whispers, framing her jaw with both hands, so that Astra can’t look away from her. “I will keep Kara safe, and I will try to make the Council see the truth in your cause. Not matter what it takes. That much I can promise you.”

 

It’s Astra who doesn’t believe her, Astra who finally looks away, and Astra who refuses to respond, no matter how Alura entreats her. This is another trick, she knows, although she doesn’t know why her sister is playing it.

 

(Many decades later, on a whole other planet, when Kara takes on Supergirl’s mantle, and it’s in the colours of the House of Ze, Astra will realize that Alura hadn’t been lying.)

 

\-----

 

When Fort Rozz crashlands to Earth, Astra has to start from scratch in many ways.

 

She has to relearn her own body, which reacts to Earth’s yellow star in strange ways that she has only heard theorized before.

 

She has to learn how to navigate a world whose technology is more primitive than even the most impoverished of the planets she has previously known.

 

She even has to relearn science itself, because the parameters this world operates in are so drastically different from Krypton’s. 

 

Thus, it’s a struggle, when she first starts to explore the danger of climate change looming over this world. The intricacies of multi-dimensional navigational math is her forte, not ecology. Yet, Astra perseveres, scrounging together equations she finds in Earth’s textbooks, and research she steals from the Fort Rozz server, aided by the grudging help of the sole Coluan on board.

 

Very soon into her research, it becomes clear to her that this world is in no serious peril, not like that of Krypton. It will be many decades, perhaps even a century, until catastrophe is spelled out for Earth through the changing of its atmosphere. Even then, the planet itself would outlast the disasters that would overcome its human population.

 

Astra finds herself oddly disappointed by that. 

 

That is nothing, though, compared to Non’s reaction.

\---

 

Non doesn’t like her findings. He doesn’t like Earth either, pronouncing it too primitive to even attempt to save, although in her darker moments Astra wonders if it was salvation that he really had in mind. 

 

She’s not entirely surprised, when he elects to leave the planet for greener pastures. She’s rather more surprised when most of the Fort Rozz inmates elect to go with him, taking the fortress with them, to a blue star system with a trio of sister planets, that promises much greater rewards.

 

Fort Rozz isn’t home. Nothing has been home, for a very long time. Yet, Astra realizes, after it’s gone, that she had gotten used to it, the way a captive gets used to her captors. To lose her base of operations so abruptly, is... disorienting.

 

It’s not the first loss Astra has suffered. She wagers it won’t be the last.

 

\--

 

Twelve years of loneliness later, Kara reveals herself to the world as Supergirl, and Astra learns that her niece had survived after all.

 

\---

 

Where Astra had once worn the colours of her house in robes of black accented by grey, Kara seems to have taken the opposite approach. Her light cape is more like the coming of dawn than midnight. When it flutters in the wind, the light catches it, and it sparkles every colour of the rainbow, like the surface of an oil spill. The In-Ze crest, spelled out in white on the dark blue tunic of her torso, shines like diamonds in the sunlight.

 

Astra watches her from the shadows, and wonders why she hadn’t simply followed in the footsteps of her illustrious cousin from the house of El.

 

\--

 

Through bits and pieces of information that she manages to get by hacking into the DEO records - damnably difficult for firewall technology of human make, leading her to suspect it might not be of human make after all - Astra learns what had happened on Krypton after her trial.

 

She learns that Alura had in fact tried to reason with the council, and had come up against stone wall after stone wall. That her repeated inquiries had eventually created a rift between her and Zor-El, which in turn led to a rift between their two houses. That Alura’s decision to send Kara to Earth ahead of time, had been the last straw that broke their union.

 

That is how Astra learns that her sister had indeed kept her last, desperate promise to her.

 

\---

 

Astra never makes any effort to meet Kara. 

 

It’s safer that way. Her niece is already on thin ice with Kal-El, Astra surmises from covert reconnaissance, on account of the falling out between their two families. The reappearance of a family member who just so happens to be an intergalactic criminal, wouldn’t help matters.

 

That doesn’t mean Astra abandons her niece. Quite the opposite. From the day she learns that Kara is alive again, she follows Kara everywhere on her missions, as covertly as she can. Her niece is a fast learner, but every day throws new challenges at her, both from her employer and from the government organization that she seems to have aligned herself with. 

 

Astra does what she can do to get rid of the most pressing obstacles in Kara’s way, without giving herself away.  A distraction here in the middle of a pitched fight, aimed at a foe just as they’re getting the better of Kara in a fight. A covert visit to the offices of people like Max Lord and Samuel Lane, who are far too interested in tracking her niece’s activities for Astra’s comfort.

 

Her interference is constant, but never overt. Despite her efforts, though, Astra once almost gives herself away, when Kara is badly losing to an Analorian escapee from Fort Rozz, a vicious monster whose crimes were legendary even inside Fort Rozz circles. A few blasts of Astra’s heat vision, aimed from a covert distance at an unexpected angle, hurts the beast just enough to give Kara the upper hand in the confrontation. 

 

After she’s brought the escapee into containment, though, Kara turns and seems to look in a puzzled direction towards Astra’s hiding place, even though she couldn’t have seen her even with her Kryptonian vision, not with the cloaking technology that Astra is using.

 

\---

 

Three weeks later, there’s a strange woman waiting in her house, when Astra returns from her regular patrols one night. 

 

The stranger makes no effort to hide herself. When Astra lands in the garden, and comes in through the back door of the house, the woman is in her living room, perched on her worn sofa and watching her.

  
  


“You came unarmed,” Astra says, advancing into the room slowly. “That was foolish.”

 

“Give me some credit,” the woman - Alexandra, Astra will learn her name to be later, though she prefers Alex -  says. “No weapon I have would work against a Kryptonian. To bring a useless one would only have served to antagonize you for no reason.”

 

“Why are you here, then?” Astra asks. “Do you make a habit of breaking into people’s living quarters?”

 

“Only when they’re covertly helping an alien from a destroyed planet from which there are only supposed to be two survivors. When that keeps happening, let’s just say I’m bound to get a little curious.”

 

Astra tenses without realizing it, her teeth grinding into each other audibly.

 

“Relax,” Alex says, “I’m with the DEO. If you know enough of what’s going on behind the scenes to be helping Supergirl out so constantly, then you probably already know who we are. I’m one of the agents that work with Supergirl.” 

 

Astra doesn’t relax.

 

“Why are you here?” she repeats.

 

“You’ve been helping Supergirl,” Alex says. “It took me a while to figure out that it was happening at all, let alone who was doing it. But all those distractions, the weird interference signals... something just didn’t add up. I managed to track them down to this location and well, here you are.”

 

She shrugs. “You don’t carry yourself like some innocent bystander, is all I’m saying.”

 

Astra must have tensed again, because Alex’s hands go up, patting the air in front of her, as if she’s patting a spooked animal. 

 

“No one knows I’m here,” she says. “You don’t have to worry.”

 

Her heart rate doesn’t change, aside from the acceptable levels of fluctuation. Neither do her other vitals that Astra has learned to monitor with her supersense. She isn’t lying.

 

“Who are you, then?” Alex asks.

 

“Did you come here to interrogate me?” Astra asks. Years of disuse must have chipped away at her parley skills, because the question comes out harsh and wounded.

 

(There’d been an interrogation before, when Fort Rozz had first crashed to Earth, and they hadn’t been able to cloak themselves from this country’s military in time. It is how Astra had discovered that there is one thing on this planet that she’s not invulnerable to: kryptonite.)

 

“No,” Alex says, looking at her with a complex expression that Astra find impossible to read. “I came here to ask you why.”

 

“Why what?”

 

Alex comes closer. It’s almost like she’s stalking Astra, except that Astra doesn’t feel hunted down, not by this woman.

 

“I want to know why you keep helping her,” Alex says when they’re face to face. 

 

\---

 

Astra never ends up telling Alex the reason why, that visit. Not when there are so many other reasons to be wary of the woman, and of the organization she works for. 

 

So Astra doesn’t tell Alex why, but that doesn’t seem to discourage her. She keeps visiting her, badgering her with one question or other, and sometimes with criticisms for interfering too much into the DEO’s activities. As if Astra cares about that, outside of how they might impact Kara.

 

In a strange way, though, she gets used to Alex showing up. It’s almost a welcome change, from the monotony of her life otherwise.

 

Until, one day, the other shoe drops.

 

\---

 

“I’ve been doing some digging,” Alex beginning.

 

Her tone, a mix of awkward and forbidding, warns Astra that this isn’t yet another routine question. She glances up from the report that Alex had handed her. (It’s some personal research project that she had wanted Astra’s input on, although Astra doesn’t know why; by Earth standards, it’s meticulously researched and accurate.)

 

“What?”

 

“There was a holographic database, in the pod that brought K... Supergirl to Earth,” Alex says. “I’ve been trying to get it to work for months now, but I only succeeded last week.”

 

Astra feels panic creeping up her spine, or maybe it’s just phantom memory of how that kryptonite had flowed up her veins. 

 

“And what did you find?”

 

“As if you don’t already know,” Alex says, shaking her head. “That’s why you didn’t tell me who you are, isn’t it? I mean, you look  _ exactly  _ like her.”

 

“Who?” Astra manages to get the word out through clenched teeth.

 

“Like Kara’s mom!” Alex says, throwing her hands in the air. “But, she’s dead, isn’t she? Which means you’ve got to be the other one. Her sister, except that she...  _ you’re _ supposed to be on Fort Rozz. Except, here you are.”

 

Astra sighs.

 

“Here I am,” she echoes. “What will you do with this information?”

 

Alex fiddles with the seam of her uniform sleeve, looking away from Astra all the while.

 

“Honestly, I was really pissed when I found out. For so many reasons, starting with the fact that you’ve been lying to me, and ending with the fact that you’ve got a rap sheet longer than a CVS receipt.”

 

“A what?”

 

“Forget it,” Alex says, waving her hands in the air again. “You know what I mean,  _ Astra.” _

 

“Do you blame me?” Astra asks. “Look at how your kind reacts to aliens. Look at General Lane!”

 

“I’m not General Lane!” Alex snaps, and then seems to sag. “Look, you helped Kara, and that means a lot more to me than some old criminal record from a whole another planet, or what General Lane thinks. Hell, from what Clark tells me, even his grandpa was considered a lawbreaker by Krypton’s standards, and look how the Man of Steel turned out.”

 

Astra is almost insulted.

 

“That’s what you’re basing your assessment of me on? Some anecdote Kal-El told you about Seg-El?”

 

Alex rolls her eyes.

 

“I’m basing it on the fact that you’ve been helping Kara secretly for more than a year now, and by the fact that you haven’t killed me, even though you’re clearly annoyed by my persistent visits. I’m not saying I trust you either, mind you, and I’m still pissed off about the lying, but I guess I’m not exactly... wary of you, either.”

 

Astra is so relieved by the outcome of the assessment, crude though it is, that she fails to ask Alex why it matters so much to her. Why  _ Kara _ seems to matter so much to her, that she’d revise her opinion of a condemned criminal, based on whether they’d helped Supergirl or not.

 

\---

 

Kryptonite is a threat that has always lurked in the back of Astra’s mind, ever since her single exposure to it via the military. Unfortunately, it’s also the one thing that she cannot protect Kara from, no matter how hard she tries. 

 

This means that Astra is watching, paralyzed and unable to fly to help, when Kara is exposed to kryptonite for the first time, from a mercenary employed by the Agents of Liberty. 

 

This means that Astra is watching when Alex throws herself in the path of the kryptonite bullets aimed at Supergirl, taking to her chest the projectiles that were meant for Kara. 

 

This means that Astra is watching, when a distraught Kara collapses over Alex’s fallen form, crying and cradling her limp body, until DEO agents carry the two of them away.

 

Astra manages to limp away from the exposure radius of the kryptonite, mindlessly drifting through the crowd that mills around the site of the explosion. Somehow she makes it back to her makeshift home, still lost in a haze of fear, although she can’t distinguish whether it’s for Kara or for Alex.

 

She’s almost close to going out of her mind with worry, closing to throwing away her cover altogether and rushing to Kara’s apartment, when there’s finally a knock on her door two days later, and Alex walks in, her familiar stride slowed by a limp.

 

Astra doesn’t realize that she moves with superspeed, until Alex jumps when she appears right in front of her.

 

“Jesus, Astra-”, she starts. “Give some war-”

 

Her words cut off, when Astra curves a palm around her jaw.

 

“You’re alright,” Astra breathes out.

 

Relief seems to be bubbling inside her, and a joy that feels dusty from disuse. Exultant, she hugs Alex, noticing only later how the woman stiffens.

 

“Of course I’m fine,” Alex mumbles, fighting out of the embrace, and pushing past her to take her customary perch on the sofa’s arm.

 

“And Kara?” Astra asks, following her, not discouraged in the slightest.

 

“She’s good,” Alex says. “They didn’t get her, and the police already arrested Maxwell’s crony. Not to brag but, he’s lucky the NCPD got to him before Kara.”

 

Astra sighs once more in relief. Alex seems to mirror the motion, except that she looks much more exhausted, and her slight wince doesn’t pass unnoticed by Astra.

 

“You should be resting, shouldn’t you?” she asks. “You humans take longer than us to recover from wounds. Who allowed you to walk around?”

 

“Allowed?” Alex’s laugh is more like a snort.

 

Astra glares at her, unamused. “You’re still injured.”

 

Alex sobers up at her glare, looking strangely moved. It’s much later, after many reassurances, and more meaningful stares that Astra is unwilling to pick apart right then, that the questions she’d been suppressing bubble to the forefront of her mind.

 

“What are you to Kara?” she asks Alex. “How could she matter so much to you, that you’re willing to die for her without a moment’s thought?”

 

Alex’s expression grows pensive and stubborn all at once, and she looks down.

 

“None of your business.”

 

Astra persists. “You cannot simply be her coworker, to feel so strongly and bravely. A close friend? Lover? I was given to understand Earth’s cultures aren’t very accepting of such things.”

 

“Oh my god,” Alex says, her voice almost a screech. Her eyes are suddenly wide. “ _ Shut up _ , Astra.”

 

Astra glares. “Pardon me?”

 

Alex shakes her head.

 

“Look, I wasn’t thinking, ok? All I saw was a dangerous situation, and I reacted to it. Just like I was trained to do.”

 

Astra studies her closed-off expression, and knows she’s going to get nothing more out of her. Alex might be pleasant in most of her visits, and even amusingly awkward sometimes, but there’s always been a defensive wall behind all that, hinting at a formidable adversary, should they ever find themselves on opposing sides. It’s in full view, now. 

 

It’s Astra who relents. 

 

“Very well,” she says. “Keep your secrets. But, use this.”

 

Alex blinks at the flash drive that Astra extends to her.

 

“I think this is contemporary storage technology for Earthlings, is it not?” Astra asks, as she hands the drive over. “There are plans in there for a Kryptonite deflector. I’m afraid it won’t stand up to sustained assault, but it will buy Kara enough time to get away, in case of such an attack.”

 

Alex turns the stick gingerly over and over in her hands, before she looks back up at Astra. She swallows, and suddenly she looks very awkward again, and young. Unsure.

 

Which makes Asta uncomfortable too, causing her to look away.

 

“I have one more thing,” she says, when Alex gets up as if to leave. 

 

Alex looks, with some confusion, at the sheaf of black textile that Astra holds out to her.

 

“This is material crafted of Coluan technology,” Astra says. “Far more advanced than even Krypton’s. It’s impervious to every projectile weapon documented in seventeen galaxies, and far more lightweight than your traditional protective vests of Earth make. There should be enough material there to craft a uniform for yourself. If you’re going to be stupid enough to throw yourself in front of Supergirl, then you should have a suit worthy of such an idiot.”

 

For once, Alex doesn’t even snap out a retort, when she takes Astra’s gift. Instead, she looks vaguely troubled, and pensive, as she takes her leave.

  
  


\---

 

The next visit, Alex reveals to Astra that she’s Kara’s sister.

 

“Don’t be silly,” Astra snaps. “Of course you’re not.”

 

Alex looks at her with surprise, as if that had been far from the reaction she was expecting.

 

“Excuse me?” she snaps back, even more ferociously.

 

Astra backtracks.

 

“You cannot be,” she argues.

 

Alex is a human, and Alura hadn’t... Alura  _ couldn’t have _ . Even if she had, the physical impossibilities aside, the implications of such a link is disquieting to Astra is ways that she feels loath to explore.

 

Alex studies her confusion, and then rolls her eyes. “Let me guess, adoption wasn’t a thing on Krypton, either.”

 

Astra blinks. “Adoption?”

 

Alex explains the matter, while Astra listens with initial skepticism. The concept of familial ties that transcend biological ties... such a concept would be anathema on Krypton. Perhaps even criminal, she suspects, if the Council were to make a judgment on such a thing. 

 

And yet, the fact remains that Alex had been willing to die for Kara. Something that Astra is willing to wager Alura would never have done for her, nor Zor-El for his brother Jor. And something about the distraught way that Kara had cradled Alex’s injured form, tells Astra that Kara would have just as easily thrown her own life away, if it mean saving Alex’s.

 

Alex starts when Astra embraces her, suddenly. 

 

“Hey,” she says, starting back, before tensing, and then finally relaxing into Astra’s hold. “What are you-”

 

“Thank you,” Astra mumbles into her hair. “Thank you for taking care of her, when we couldn’t. Thank you for being her family.”

 

She holds Alex for longer than she means to, but for once the skittish woman doesn’t pull away. Instead, pliant arms come around Astra, and a head comes to tentative rest against her shoulder, as they stand together.

 

It’s the first time Astra has been touched in a gentle way, in more years than she can remember.

 

\---

 

A month later, when Alex stumbles into Astra’s home bleeding, a gaping wound winding down her torn uniform, Astra isn’t stupid enough to waste time on questions. Her first act is to help the woman to a chair, her next to rip away enough of the uniform to get at the injury and clean it.

 

She is so intent on rinsing the wound and stitching it back up, that it’s some time before she looks up to see that Alex is quietly watching her, through half-lidded eyes, as she proceeds.

 

“What?” Astra asks. “I will require an explanation for the state you’re in later, don’t think I’ll forget it.”

 

“Same old,” Alex murmurs. “Went in solo, thought I could handle the mission, thought wrong. Didn’t want J’onn to find out and chew me out, he’ll put me on desk duty for a month.”

 

“Desk duty is the least of what you deserve for this,” Astra gripes, awkwardly plying gauze around Alex’s arm, still unused to human methods of first aid.

 

“Fuck you,” Alex mumbles, but there’s no bite to the words. 

 

Instead, she sounds disoriented, something Astra attributes to the loss of blood. “I just... I just wanted him to know that I can run missions on my own, you know? Kara is great, but it’s not like I need a ... a  _ babysitter, _ you know? I was an agent for three years before she got there, and I did just fine until then!”

 

Astra shifts her palm against the woman’s torso, to steady herself as she winds more gauze, and feels Alex tense.

 

“I don’t know, Alex. All I know is that you’re injured, and if you want me to support the course of action that got you injured, you’re looking to the wrong person.”

 

“Fuck you,” Alex mumbles again. “Why do you care, anyways?”

 

“Of course I care!” Astra snaps. “Do you think I want you injured? I may not be human, Alexandra, but do you truly think I’m so cold that I’d be unmoved by your injuries?”

 

There’s silence for a while, and Astra is almost worried the woman has fainted, when a quiet reply comes.

 

“No,” the words are muffled against her arm, that Alex is slumped over. “I don’t think you’re cold at all.”

 

Astra shifts, trying to ignore the line of warmth that runs directly from where Alex’s face makes contact with her skin.

 

“You are an idiot,” she murmurs again. “You’re exceptional, Alex. You don’t need to hurt yourself like this, to prove it.”

 

“You do know I’m the doctor here, right?” Alex says, looking up at her, and laughing a little awkwardly. “You’re not supposed to be psychoanalyzing me.”

 

She’s tense once more, when Astra rips up more of her clothing and starts to runs the gauze around her torso

 

“Hey watch it, that tickles!”

 

Astra doesn’t answer, too focused on the work again. By the time she’s done, she looks up to see Alex watching her again, her awkwardness taken away by an unfamiliar look of vulnerability.

 

“Alex?” she asks, with some concern. 

 

Oh Rao, is it the injury and blood loss taking over?

 

Instead of replying, Alex’s eyes close slowly, and she’s leaning in Astra’s direction. She must be fainting!

 

“Alexandra!” Astra says, shaking her. “Alex!”

 

“What?” Alex snaps, wide-eyed again, and  looking disgruntled as she moves back away from Astra. 

 

Not to be deterred from her worry, Astra forces her head down firmly.

 

“Astra!” Alex flails her limbs in the air, before throwing Astra off bodily, a motion she allows. “What the hell are you doing?”

 

“I’m helping you breathe,” Astra huffs, offended. She might not be some medical expert like Alex, but... “I’ve read it in the first aid pamphlets that you humans are so fond of cutting down trees to print. That’s what one is supposed to do, when one is coming over faint.”

 

“I’m not-” Alex looks at her, exasperation taking over her face, before she looks back down at her feet. “Oh, you thought... oh. Nevermind.”

 

The last part is almost mumbled out, and sounds vaguely disappointed, and well, Astra wasn’t voted the best strategic mind of her squadron for ten cycles in a row without being able to extrapolate from scant evidence.

 

Perhaps the behaviour she’d taken to be the result of shortness of breath and injury was due to something else. Something that Astra would have never hoped to be the addressee of, not from someone as amazing as Alex.

 

“Alex...”

 

“Drop it,” Alex mutters. “I don’t want you making some pitying comment just to be nice. Forget I said anything.”

 

“When have I ever been ‘nice’?” Astra asks. 

 

She feels like something that she has held at bay for months, with fraying tatters of self-control, is trying to burst out of her, now that it’s been given the slightest leverage 

 

“Tell me what you meant!”

 

“You know damn well what I meant,” Alex replies, still refusing to look at her.

 

“Just tell me!” Astra cries, her self-control completely unravelled at last. “Alex, it’s hard enough to decipher humans, without you expecting me to believe that you meant something I don’t dare to believe you meant!”

 

“Ugh,” Alex growls back, sounding just as undone, as her fingers come up to frame Astra’s jaw, yanking her down and forwards. “You just don’t know how to let go, do you?”

 

The roughness of her words are at odds with gentle way she finally fits her mouth against Astra’s, kissing her in a slow and drawn out fashion, as if she thinks this is the last time she’ll get to do this. Astra closes her eyes of her own accord, and gives in to the sensation, which is like nothing she’s ever felt before, or even felt herself capable of feeling. The need that rushes up inside her at the press of Alex’s mouth to hers leaves her gasping, her mind overtaken in the most glorious way imaginable.

 

When Alex finally pulls away, Astra leans forward, seeking out her mouth again. She opens her eyes to find Alex watching her, with watery eyes and an unusually wide smile.

 

“Oh,” Alex says. 

 

The ferocious glare she had been wearing has disappeared, as if it had never been there, but-

 

“You’re crying,” Astra observes.

 

“No,” Alex says, “Just... happy. You make me happy. Even if you’re annoyingly persistent about things I don’t want to talk about.”

 

“Me?” Astra asks. “I make you happy?”

 

As if in response, Alex kisses her again, and again, and for a third time briefly, before pulling back. 

 

Astra sighs, when they finally part.

 

“What are we doing?” she asks, because this is something entirely new.

 

Despite the long stretch of time they’ve known each other for, this doesn’t feel like the culmination of something they’ve been working towards. It feels like something unexpected, like something that was never supposed to happen in the first place, hurtling them at full speed in a direction neither of them were supposed to have travelled in.

 

Alex leans further back and looks at her, or through her, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as if she’s deep in thought.

 

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she says finally.

 

Astra’s face must have fallen, because Alex’s own takes on a more panicked and sheepish expression, then.

 

“Not that... I mean... I didn’t-” 

 

She stumbles over her words, then starts again. “I think some part of me was kind of hoping it would, for months now, but I never actually planned for what to do if it did.”

 

“And now that it has, what now?” Astra asks. 

 

“You have to meet Kara,” Alex says. “That’s the first thing, before we can even start... whatever this is. Or we’ll be fucking it up from the get-go. You know that, right?”

 

Astra nods.

 

“I think I knew that much, from the first time you told me who you really were,” she remarks. “From then, I knew that I couldn’t run from my past much longer.”

 

“Then, why have you hesitated?” Alex asks. “You know Kara would want to see you again.”

 

“Would she?” Astra asks, unable to contain her sad smile. “Her criminal aunt, who couldn’t even manage to save Krypton to justify her crimes? Not to mention, not everyone I disagreed with left with Non on Fort Rozz. My enemies will become her enemies, as soon as they find out we’re related.”

 

Alex is shaking her head, an oddly familiar look of stubborn faith stamped all over her face. 

 

“None of that will matter to her,” she says. “What she’ll care about is that her aunt still loves her, after all this time, and that you’ve been protecting her all along.”

 

“Alex, I can’t-” To Astra’s mortification, her voice catches, and she freezes up altogether.

 

_ I cannot face rejection again, after Alura, after Non. Not from the last person remaining of my family. _

 

Fingers cradle her jaw, tilting it so that she and Alex are face to face, and Astra remembers that she hadn’t dared hope for this either, mere minutes ago.

 

“Trust me,” Alex says, her voice as soft as a shadow, stealing over every wall of Astra’s defenses. “Kara is different from anyone else you’ve been used to. This will be a good thing.”

 

And, for once, Astra lets herself trust, and hope.    
  


“Alright.” She nods, and sinks into the caress of the fingers stroking down her jawline. “Alright, I trust you.”

 

\---


End file.
